Difficulty breathing? You could try singing London: In a third-floor room of a London hospital with orange and white walls draped with Tibetan prayer flags, roughly a dozen people gathered recently to perform vocal exercises and sing songs. The participants had an ulterior motive for singing: to cope better with lung disease. The weekly group is led by a professional musician and is offered to people with respiratory problems including asthma, emphysema, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder, or COPD. Doctors at London’s Royal Brompton Hospital started the program after reasoning that the kind of breathing used by singers might also help lung patients. “Since many people enjoy singing, we thought it would help them associate controlling their breathing with something pleasant and positive rather than a standard physiotherapy technique,’’ said Dr Nicholas Hopkinson, the hospital’s top chest physician. “It’s almost accidental that they learn something about their breathing through singing,’’ he said. People with COPD have damaged lungs, which limits how much air they can breathe in and out. “Some people start to breathe very rapidly, which aggravates the problem,’’ Hopkinson said. “They take many rapid, shallow breaths and that makes it even harder for them,’’ he said. Hopkinson said learning to sing gives patients better posture and teaches them to breathe at a more manageable rate. AP TOI130707
Posted on: Tue, 09 Jul 2013 10:08:15 +0000
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